The Saga Continues

The ongoing saga of my mystery respiratory illness continues.  It has been 5 looong months, and there doensn't appear to be any end in sight. 

It started out with a cold, a cold that didn't seem to want to go away.  my doctor told me, "Sometimes these things take time to clear up."  So I waited. It got worse.  At two months, I ended up in the urgent care.  Urgent Care doc diagnosed me with bronchitis, and pneumonia in my left lung.  He put me on a bunch of meds, ordered me to stay home for 2 days and scolded me for waiting so long to come in, especially since I have asthma and a history of respiratory illness.  I got a little better, but not much.  I saw my primary doc, who diagnosed "Reactive Airway Disease", took some xrays, gave me some more meds, and told me to give it some time to clear up.  Still didn't get better. Another visit, 1st round of steroids.  Didn't sleep for a week, and was generally unpleasant for at least 2.  Still coughing, continued shortness of breath.  Another dr. visit - we should just wait and see, he tells me.  Yeah, I think that is what we've been doing, and see how well that's worked out.  He put a "just in case" prednisone prescription on the books, and told me to call back in two weeks. 

I called on Monday, left a message.  Spent Monday coughing like crazy and completely unable to breathe.  Decided to start the "just in case" steroids on Tuesday.  I've been really careful about taking them super early in the day (like prior to 6am), which has seemed to decrease the sleeplessness (which I am guessing everyone is grateful for - let's just say I was a little unpleasant through that sleeplessness phase last time around). Sent an email to primary doc Tuesday. Still coughing, though the shortness of breath seems to be better for the most part.  Mornings and evenings generally suck, though I do have a stretch in the middle of the day when I feel pretty good, and can actually walk around without feeling like I'm gasping for breath.  Still haven't heard back from the doc.   

For obvious reasons, I don't have much confidence in my doctor at this point.  I have a respiratory/asthma specialist, but my primary has felt that this is a minor flare up, and doesn't require referral.  Which is easy for him to say, since he doesn't have to live with it.  I spent pretty much the entire summer doing NOTHING, because either I couldn't breathe or was exhausted from coughing and fighting for breath all the time.  I am so TIRED of being this way.  I don't have anything elegant or insightful to say about it.  I am sick of being sick. 

I have accepted that maybe this is the best we can do for now, and maybe more drugs or more doctors is not going to make things any better, and I just have to give it time.  My life has been restricted for past 5 months with this thing. 

What I have not accepted is that this might be the normal for me, that I might never go back to my old baseline.  I know there is a chance that that might be the case.  But I am just not ready to face that possibility yet.

Knucklehead Update

So, since my last post, not much as happened.  But this is a case where no news is good news.

My ex was released from prison the next day, and transferred to San Bernardino.  Apparently he was given two different sets of discharge instructions from the prison, one showing San Bernardino and one showing San Diego.  Rather than , you know, asking which one was correct, he went for San Diego.  But, since it appears to have been at least partially the prison's fault, his parole is not being revoked.

Once he reported to San Bernardino, he was GPS'd, registered, the whole shebang.  He does not have permanent housing up there, so he is living in a motel, where about 10 other sex offenders live.  Just a heads up - DO NOT stay at the Budget Lodge in San Bernardino.  A prime example of sex offender laws working in unanticipated ways.  Is it making the community safer for a bunch of these guys to be living in a concentrated area like that?  My guess, probably not.

Since then, things have been quiet.  Per his parole officer, he has been following all his requirements without issue.  We have had no unexpected happenings.  Which should be what we'd expect, really.  If he is going to screw with us, he would probably wait until he was off GPS monitoring.  I think we have a lot more to worry about in 5 years when he is released from parole than we do now.

Off course we are still taking precautions, and will continue to do so, probably forever.  It doesn't feel like we have much choice.  I am not an advocate of that kind of paranoia -  my general attitude is that we worry too much about all the wrong things.  But you really never know with these guys.  We won't stop living our lives, but we will always be careful, always keep it in the back of our minds.  More likely than not, he won't bother us again, but if he does, we have to be prepared. 

Rollercoaster Tuesday

Its only 10a.m., and its been a rollercoaster of a day already.  My worst fears were realized this morning.  A call to Ex-H's parole officer revealed that he did not report for parole yesterday like he was supposed to.  A warrant had been issued for his arrest, e unsure of his location, but they assured us they were looking.

This is something I had been worrying about.  See he has never been one for following the rules - he seems to think they don't apply to him, and for the most part the system has allowed him to get away with it.  Furthermore, even though he is a convicted felon, seems that if they are being paroled to a different county than they were imprisoned in, they just drop them off at the bus station with instructions about where to report, and trust they will show up.  He is subject to GPS monitoring, but they do not affix the GPS until they report for parole.  So it seems to me it would be pretty simple to just not show up for parole.  Sure, they will put a warrant out and look for you, but I would think it easy enough to lay low and not get caught.

So it happened - he didn't show up.  And I was understandably a little upset.  Fortunately, an hour later, he showed up at the parole office in San Diego (he was supposed to report for parole in San Bernardino, more than 100 miles away), and was arrested.  Of course he had lots of excuses about why he didn't show up on time or in the location he was supposed to.  And, on top of that, he tried to make a case for why he shouldn't be paroled to San Bernardino, but to San Diego instead.  Fortunately, he has a good parole officer, and she has zero tolerance for this kind of nonsense - she has ordered his parole revoked, and for him to return to prison.  He will be in jail here until his hearing (up to 35 days).  At his hearing, the parole commissioner will decide if he should return to prison, and for how long (up to a year).

So, it was a nerve racking little while, but a good ending.  We get a reprieve from having to deal with him, at least for a little while.      

So, this is it

So, tomorrow is the day.  Deep breaths, girl, deep breaths.  Yeah, I am freaked out.  I know the chances are extremely slim that he will decide to blow off showing up for parole and come after us instead.  Logically, I realize that.  But not-so-logically,  I know that its a total crapshoot.  I don't know what his frame of mind is.  I don't know what being in prison these past 4+ years have done to him.  Maybe it made him scared and he'll do what he's supposed to because he certainly doesn't want to go back.  Or maybe it just made him crazier.  Who's to say he hasn't been in there waiting for the chance to get his revenge for all the wrongs I have committed against him?  (Keep in mind these are perceived wrongs.  Even though he was ridiculously violent and horrible to me in pretty much every way he could be, he still came out of it all feeling like he was the victim.  Pretty typical abuser attitude, but still it blows my mind sometimes. He wrote me a letter from prison when he was first locked up, telling me he forgave me for it all.  It would be good for a laugh if it weren't so scary to think that he has no remorse for any of it.). I have nothing to do with why he's been locked up - NOTHING. I was not even the victim of the crime he was locked up for. But I know he doesn't see it that way, because he always has to find someone else to blame for everything that goes wrong in his life.  I know there's only a slim chance that he'll show up at my door, but any chance is too much when your life is at stake. 

We'll be laying low for the weekend, probably for the next few months to be honest.  The kids know he's getting out, but they don't know that tomorrow is the day.  They leave on vacation this week with their grandparents and some family friends.  I don't want him to be in their minds, for them to be worrying rather than having fun.  I think I'm doing enough worrying for the lot of us.

1 More Day

Ex-H will be released from prison on July 3 at 12:01 a.m.  1 day, and about 8 more hours.  He will walk free, and we will lose the freedom we have enjoyed over these past 4 years.  Again we will have to hide and worry and be afraid.  Sure, he is on probation, and will have his GPS anklet.  But none of us are stupid enough to believe that will keep us safe if he decides to come after us.  Sure, we are taking all the precautions we can, but no one can say what his state of mind is or what lengths he will go to. 

Tomorrow is my last day of freedom.  Sure, I am afraid.  I am sad that I can't leave the house by myself without having to worry, or let the kids play on the street, just in case he gets it in his head to take them; that I have to parade his mugshot in front of my co-workers, just in case he decides to show up; that I have change my route to work everyday, and take so many other little steps, to keep him off our trail and keep us all safe.  I shouldn't have to hide.  I shouldn't have to keep my kids inside.  I shouldn't have to worry and cry and lose sleep.  But I do.  And he gets to walk free. 

(And yes, I have spent a significant amount of time whining about how unfair this all is.  Amazingly, it does not seem to help in changing the situation any.)

Best case scenario, he follows the requirements of his parole, the child custody/visitation order (which gives him zero custody or visitation, and does not allow him to contact the children) and the various restraining orders, then disappears and doesn't bother us once his parole is up.  Or, even better, he violates the terms of his parole (which seems pretty damn easy to do, he has a lot of requirements to fill, seeing as he is a convicted sex offender and deemed a sexually violent predator and I think it highly likely) and goes back to prison for another 5 years.  So keep your fingers crossed and knock on wood (and whatever else you can think of to bring us some luck!).

Starting Over

For the past couple years, I have (occasionally) maintained both this and another blog.  This one about my family, the other about my "other" life - the life of abuse, of depression, of anger and anguish.  The idea of integrating those two lives in one place - to show those who read my "family" blog and knew only that side of my life, the ugliness that lie underneath it all - was more than I could handle.  To be honest, even now, years after I have left the abuse, it is still hard to admit to people in my everyday life that it happened, and that I still deal daily with the after-effects of what he did to me, to my children and to our life.  I felt very strongly that those two sides of my self and of my life should remain separate.

But I have also come to believe that this kind of attitude is one of the things that allows the kind of violence I experienced to continue happening.  So many people have the attitude that these things don't happen to people like them, or people they know.  And it would really be a shock to them to find out they do.  Until people can see that domestic violence affects their mothers, sisters, neighbors, co-workers and friends, they have no investment in seeing that it doesn't continue to happen.  Until those of us who have been affected stand up and speak up, they have no way to know.

 I can't explain why most people in my life don't know about what I've been through.  I am not the one who terrorized my family and acted violently toward my spouse.  I am not the one who traumatized my children.  If I had been the victim of a violent crime at the hands of a stranger, I wouldn't give a second thought to talking about it with others.  Why is it shameful just because the aggressor was my husband?  He is the one who should be ashamed, not me (which is a whole other story in itself).

So I decided to start this blog over.  And talk about the realities of my life, not just the happy family-oriented parts.  Because all of it is part of my life, and part of me.  I have been through a lot, and am a stronger woman because of it.  And I am not ashamed of that.  Angry, sad, maybe. But ashamed? Not anymore.